Biden administration monitors Boeing labor talks as strike looms

The Biden Administration is monitoring contract discussions between Boeing Co. and its largest union as a strike deadline looms that could shut down the company’s Seattle-area airplane factories next week.

Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su spoke with Jon Holden, president of IAM District 751, which represents about 33,000 Boeing factory workers in Washington and Oregon, on Tuesday. Leaders of the union have been holed up with Boeing officials in a Seattle hotel for the past three weeks, hammering out terms for an agreement to replace a contract that expires at midnight on Sept. 12.

Holden gave Su “a clear picture of where we stand,” the union said in a daily dispatch. “The gap between our priorities and the company’s offers remains wide.”

The two sides are embarking on their first full-scale collective bargaining in 16 years at a time when skilled labor is scarce and union activism is on the rise in the US. Financially strapped Boeing can ill-afford a lengthy stoppage like the two-month strike that shut down its jet production in 2008.

“Negotiating this 304-page document has been a monumental task, but we’re in the final stretch,” the IAM 751 dispatch said. “The stakes couldn’t be higher, and we’re standing firm.”

In its most recent update to workers dated Aug. 29, Boeing struck a conciliatory tone, saying that it sought to avoid a strike. “We continue to make progress and find common ground with the IAM,” the company said.